I am a person who feels the burden things. Stuff. Items. Especially items that I haven’t picked out for myself. Those give me the most anxiety. Items that are gifted to me or my baby in the spirit of “I thought you might like this” or “It’s a holiday and I felt like I needed to get you something” mostly just make me feel heavy. And I usually DO like the thing. I just don’t usually need it.

In the last 3 or so years, I’ve made a mindful effort to curb the amount of items I bring into my home. I either need to completely love it or have a defined need for it in order for it to be in my space. Having a kid completely derailed this lifestyle change. Babies come with a lot of necessities, but they come with even more non-necessities. And that’s where a lot of my recent anxiety has come from.

Having a baby has elevated the amount of gifts we receive. And I get it. Baby stuff is fun to buy because every product is super cute. But as the pile of gifts for the baby grows, so does the level of anxiety I feel around those things. Not only does the responsibility of dealing with my own things fall on me, now I need to deal with his. (dealing: organizing, cleaning, keeping track of, washing, donating, storing, ect) (and yes, Nate also does some of this ‘dealing with’, but the majority falls on me simply because I am in the house more often than he is.)

Another part of the burden of gifts is this: I feel really bad (like, guilty, to the point of crying) if I ever end up donating these things, because I know the gift giver has spent their hard earned money on it. So not only do I feel anxiety around excess stuff in my home, I feel an additional anxiety around giving it away because I feel like I am wasting other people’s money.

The *wild* part is that recently I asked a couple questions surrounding this topic in my local Mom’s group and the responses blew my mind. I am not the only parent who feels this way, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the amount of gifts our kids receive. There were so many other moms who mentioned something about how they have asked time and time again for their people to stop buying un-asked-for things for their kids, and people just don’t. More gifts. More stuff. More excess stuff for these tired moms to spend their already-limited time and energy on organizing, cleaning, or finding new homes for.

BY THE WAY. Don’t get any of this mixed up with ungratefulness. You can be grateful for it and also exhausted by it.

SO. If you are hoping to give some a gift, ask questions first!
“What useful or cool thing have you been eyeing lately that I could get for you as a (Christmas, Mother’s Day, birthday) gift?”
“What type of gift would be really useful to you/bring you joy right now?”
“Do you have a wishlist I could get you something from?”
“Send me a link to your top (maternity, baby, kitchen) item you’ve been needing!”
Think before you buy!